I've got about 6 or 8 long term hobbies. But all of them have taken a back seat to something else over the years. Some others I've done for a few years and then given up and some I still have to get to at some point in the future. This year, and for a few more at least, it's paintball shared with a bit of my motorcycle racing and getting back to my model airplane building and flying. I find it's more fun when I have some diversity. I don't tend to burn out that way. Heck, I'm even hoping to get my diving gear wet a time or two this year.

The point is that it's best to train for a general skill that is applicable to a number of fields. If you center your skill set to one niche industry then you'll be hungry when it suffers or worse. Burn out your intrest in it after a few years. If you like the idea of making parts then training in CNC machining programming and operation would be a good field to get into. Work for Da Man while making your own stuff on the side. If your products take off then you can shift to marketing your stuff directly. And if they don't take off then at least you have a steady income from the big corporation that pays you for your marketable skills you were smart enough to take.

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I just thought I'd take a quick peek and then the world went all yellow.....

I agree. I had no intention of making the attempt to earn a living off making paintball items. Just simply as a side thing. Until I get on my feet and have dabbled a bit in parts designing paintball will be separate from my job. I know that's really the smartest thing to do.

I'd like to get into some machine tool operations. Definitely a plus for a designer to have some machine tool experience.

I have other hobbies. I know that there's more to life than paintball. It's just the only hobby that has held my interest for so many years. It's also the only sport, aside from hockey, that I can play at a competitive level.

Paintball is the only sport I have ever been good at. I lack the coordination, athleticism, and build that many other sports demand. I always like shooting sports and have a hunting background. My pops bought me a cheap, plastic pumpgun one X-Mas to mess around with and I started spending more time outdoors (aside from the hunting, fishing, etc.).
Paintball seems, to me anyway, to be quite a bit more flexible than other sports in terms of build and athleticism. I think knowing that just about anyone can can get good at it (as well as the hunting/shooting background) is what made me get into it. I'm actually in slightly better shape and have more endurance because of it.
Now it's just a few specific health issues I'm worried about.

The owner of the proshop I'm sponsored by is a prime example. Not only has he played paintball for close to 20 years, he also works full-time on night shift as an industrial mechanic. Talk about tearing up your body... But he's a hardcore paintball enthusiast like myself. He won't quit until his body is shot.
But he's also a trained fighter (kinda rusty now, but he's still in decent shape). Some form of physical conditioning/training can really help a person in paintball as he/she gets older. Something else to look into I guess.

im not really worried about my body failing on me (conditioning wise) unless i get an injury in football. football is definatly gonna keep me in shape. i dont really have any other hobbies that gives me the rush paintball does.

i don't only paintball, i golf too. (a golfing paintballer? ), but golf is not much of an athletic sport. that's why i'm starting to work out for both sports.

What bothers me about golf is the mentality of intense golfers - they act strange and think that their behavior will win games. I know that having mental stability does affect your game, but please, just shut up and play. /rant

golf is cool cause they give you this mini car and then a women drives around selling your booze. Whats not to like about that. I mean the having to get up and hit that little white ball is a tad bit of a pain in the ***. O yeah and they don't give you a damn horn on the little cart. Other then that it is a great activity to get a group of friends together on a nice day and enjoy the great outdoors.

golf is cool cause they give you this mini car and then a women drives around selling your booze. Whats not to like about that. I mean the having to get up and hit that little white ball is a tad bit of a pain in the ***. O yeah and they don't give you a damn horn on the little cart. Other then that it is a great activity to get a group of friends together on a nice day and enjoy the great outdoors.

I laugh every time I see a club that costs $200+, and then a dad buys his 12 year-old son two of them. I just don't understand how people can be so into it. I know that it's challenging and that the game can be competitive, but come on... it's golf.

man, when my church plays, its all game. gets very competitive. we still have fun and makes some jokes, but its a very competitive joking...lol. ultimate frisbee is a very good way to get conditioned to.

I've never been one for the gym, jogging, running or swimming endless laps in a pool to get nowhere. I've always had to get my exercise from some game or activity that provides some sort of distraction. Paintballing is the latest but before that it's been tennis, windsurfing, bicycling, chasing my model airplanes (more later), both cross country and downhill skiiing, hiking and other things where the exercise is just a side benifit. But if I'm doing something JUST for exercise I find it repititive and boring and won't do it for anywhere near as long as it needs.

Unfourtunetly the other sports and activities tend to cost more than a simple gym or pool membership... They sure are a lot more fun though...

Chasing my model airplanes you ask? That's because one of my more favourite forms of model airplanes are free flight models. In this style there's no radio and no control lines. We just crank up the rubber or the engine and let 'em go. They are trimmed to fly in circles and we try to put them up into air that is rising to achieve our time goal of 3 minutes. After that a fuse or timer trips the tail to spring up at a crazy angle and the model sort of "parachutes" down so we can get it back. This is all great until windy days where the models can fly up to 1/4 to 1/2 a mile away quite easily. This style of flying needs to be done out on farm country for obvious reasons.

Here's a shot of one of my rubber models built from a prewar design. This one has a 3 foot wingspan.

clicky to make biggy

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I just thought I'd take a quick peek and then the world went all yellow.....

^^Nice plane. I was into building rockets for a while, but then got more into hunting and fishing. I've even slacked off on that though. I hunt only whitetail now and I don't have a big passion for rifle hunting anymore. I'd like to pick up my shotgun again and get back into bird hunting. If I do that I may start reloading my own shot shells.